I’m trying to get my passport renewed, so I went to RiteAid for some new photos. I was relieved at the prospect of new pics, because when I got photos for my passport the first time around, I paid a ghastly amount for a travel agent in New Haven to take them. Imagine the horrors that can be produced when the picture is taken by someone 3 feet shorter than you, someone who has to point the camera almost directly upward toward your head. I’ve generally had pretty representative pictures all my life, but this one time wiped out anything I had “gotten away with” up to that point.
This time, though, my fate is equally bad, but differently so. The teen at RiteAid used a tiny digital camera about 1 1/2 feet from me, and man, is it ugly. Stringy hair, shadows all around my head from the flash (which also made my entire face shiny, thanks much), and purplish shadows around my eyes. I, round-cheeked girl and all that, look somewhat ill. When I got home, mortified, Sydney started explaining why wide-angle lenses are terrible for portraiture, and ended by telling me the perspective is all off, which is why my nose and mouth are disproportionately large. I hadn’t even gotten around to noticing that . . .
Erin
Alan Schmierer
Hey Sydney,
Can you translate “You’re an ugly, Mama” into PA Dutch or low German for me?
Should have been “You’re an ugly Mama”
mmm…hard on the ego, isn’t it?
I just realized that this was a very, very poor question to ask on this blog entry! It has nothing to do with what you wrote; it has to do with a top ten list of Mennonite put-downs that Lisa and I are writing for the CMC conference newsletter. Sorry, Erin! You’re not a mama, nor are you ugly!
I’m laughing so hard right now–both because I hate passport photography with a passion and because Dave couldn’t have picked a worse entry to comment on without reading! So sorry Erin!
–L
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Not sure that I can be of much help. I don’t know PA Dutch at all and I think that’s the language you’ll want. Most CMC members are of Swiss/French origin, right? Unless you have a Russian Mennonite contingent that I don’t know about, I expect pretty much nobody will understand the Low German. But, for what it’s worth, here it is: Du best ne äakjelje Mame.
– Sydney
Thanks, Sydney. I’ll use that until I find someone who knows PA Dutch. I’m hesitant to use my best source–my grandfather–in translating “ugly mama.”
I have a good passport photo from when I was 16. Luckily, it still looks like me. One of our insurance clients told me I don’t look a day older than 18. I’m not really sure if that’s a compliment.
I don’t have to renew my passport until 2010, so I’m holding out. I had my Visas to Russia and Singapore taken at a Walgreens however, and they turned out quite nice. I think it might have even been a Polaroid.